If you are the proud owner of a little hamster and you live in Vietnam, it is not your week.

Due to it being lunar Year of the Rat, there has been a huge increase in hamster ownership amongst Vietnamese residents. Real life hamster clubs and online hamster forums have sprung up everywhere and with the coming International Women’s Day, the Vietnamese government has decided to crack down on the hamster trend.

As of today, 10 March 2008, anyone caught possessing or trading a pet hamster will be fined up to $1,875 dollars.

So what will they do with all the hamsters? Well, there has been no mention of a plan for what to do with all the hamsters. People are likely to release their pet instead of killing them or risking the hefty fine, but that would just add to the concerns the government has for mass reproduction and spreading of disease.

“Destroying them all is really a big problem,” agriculture ministry official Nguyen Thanh Son was quoted as saying. “I think the Vietnam animal health department should take some samples, conduct tests and see how dangerous the hamsters in Vietnam really are.”

By Aki Nakimura on 10-03-2008